Is Elon Musk's "Starlink" doomed to only modest success? (satellite community)

[Yazata]

One of the last Starlink launches lofted six direct-to-cell test satellites. Six are far too few to provide service, but they allow connectivity testing while they are overhead.

And Starlink reports that they successfully performed text-messaging using these test satellites.

They still say they expect text-messaging service to roll out to the public later this year, with voice and data in 2025.

Lots of interesting information in this announcement:

https://api.starlink.com/public-files/DI...UPDATE.pdf

[Yazata]

Starlink is now activated in Mongolia.

It still isn't available in neighboring China and Russia, but the Mongolians get to enjoy it.

https://twitter.com/Starlink/status/1763427037782720980

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[Yazata]

PC Mag tests Starlink and likes it. The writer writes for the magazine but works remotely, lives in rural Idaho, and says its just what he needed.

Lots of information on hardware, availability, plans, download speeds, upload speeds and latency.

https://www.pcmag.com/articles/2024-star...trueAnthem

[Yazata]

Starlink is activated in Argentina. There are some Argentine space-nuts, Starship enthusiasts, who will be very happy about that!

https://twitter.com/Starlink/status/1773122399661105221

[Yazata]

Starlink in Homer Alaska

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And Starlink is being pressed to take more action to shut down service in countries where it isn't activated. What people are doing is buying and activating terminals in countries where it's approved, then activating the 'roaming' feature. That way they can travel with the terminals and they keep working when they arrive home.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) refuses to allow Starlink because SpaceX (Starlink's owner) isn't at least 30% owned by "historically disadvantaged groups". (Despite it being majority owned by an African-American immigrant.) The South African government isn't happy about South Africans bringing terminals in from outside the country and their continuing to work.

Sadly, it's the countries most resistant to Starlink (and X) that need them the most.

[Yazata]

"SpaceX’s ambitious Starlink satellite network is exceeding expectations at a blistering pace, according to a new report by Quilty Space, a market research and consulting firm...

Starlink’s achievements over the past three years are mind-blowing,” said Quilty. “We’re projecting a revenue jump from $1.4 billion in 2022 to $6.6 billion in 2024...

The financial outlook is equally impressive. Quilty Space estimates Starlink’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes,depreciation, and amortization) to reach $3.8 billion in 2024, a significant leap from negative $128 million in 2022.”We expect Starlink to achieve positive free cash flow for the first time in 2024,” said Quilty...

Another factor behind Starlink’s financial success lies in SpaceX’s mastery of satellite manufacturing, according to Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space.

“Starlink has been able to do an incredible job at keeping the spacecraft costs lower than basically any industry precedent,” said Henry...

So how has SpaceX achieved this cost advantage? Henry points to two major factors: aggressive vertical integration and high-volume production.

“By controlling a large portion of the manufacturing process in-house,” explained Henry, “SpaceX avoids profit margins typically added by external suppliers, keeping costs down.” Additionally, SpaceX has established an unprecedented production cadence, churning out satellites at a rate unseen before in the industry..."

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/05/ju...rofitable/

https://spacenews.com/starlink-soars-spa...rojection/

[Yazata]

Starlink is having lots of success with cruise lines which are installing large capacity commercial Starlink terminals on their ships. Not only does Starlink provide high speed internet for ship passengers far out in the middle of the ocean (passengers today demand internet connectivity at sea), it does so for crew as well, along with allowing the ship to stay in operational contact with its company, coast guards and port authorities.

Among the cruise lines using Starlink are... (there are many cargo shipping companies also using Starlink for similar reasons.)...

Carnival Cruise Line and AIDA Cruises ships, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Seabourn, P&O Cruises (Australia), Costa Cruises, P&O Cruises (UK) and Cunard.

[Yazata]

All on-orbit Starlink satellites survived the recent very intense solar storm and are working fine.

"All @Starlink satellites on-orbit weathered the geomagnetic storm and remain healthy"

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1789838269418471902

Newly launched Starlinks are more vulnerable, since they begin in lower orbits and raise their orbits to operating altitude after launch. The solar storm puffs out the earth's atmosphere and it wasn't clear how the lower orbit Starlinks would fare.

But all of the baby Starlinks survived in good shape as well

https://twitter.com/michaelnicollsx/stat...9131284609

"Raising / newly launched sats weathered through as well. Conditions were intense - 2-3x density increase at around 300km (and even bigger relative density changes at higher altitudes)."

[Yazata]

Starlink is now activated in the Pacific island country of Fiji. This is the 99th country to approve Starlink.

And Starlink has hit 3 million users, worldwide. It was as recently as December 19, 2022 that they announced 1 million active subscribers. Tripling their subscribers in just a year and a half is more than just "modest success". Reaching profitability despite their massive capital expenditure to grow their system was supposed to be unlikely if not impossible, but they've done it.

I personally expect it to grow 10x in the next few years, to tens of millions of users.

[Yazata]

Starlink is activated in the African country of Sierra Leone.

This is the 100th country to approve Starlink.